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Works in Progress

Thursday, July 31, 2014

There is a reason I am
combining weeks four and five. Number one is because both weeks I submitted a
nonfiction essay for the assignment. I think nonfiction is one of my best areas
of writing and I love writing it; it was the only weeks last year that I
actually did half-decent. I’m really used to writing essays for school, college
and scholarship essays and other things like that, so nonfiction essays come
easy to me.

Number two is because I don’t feel comfortable sharing my week
four assignment. The prompt was titled The Struggle is Real and we were tasked
to write about a personal struggle we faced in life. There weren’t a whole lot
of things for me to pick from because I haven’t faced really any big struggles
in my life yet. The content of my entry isn’t really something I want to share
with everyone. I used a personal problem and I’m not sure if I’m proud of
writing it or not.The funny part is that
I did however end up placing second (only one point away from tying with first)
in this week’s prompt. I do think that my essay was written very well and I am
proud of the technique behind it, but I’m not so sure about the essay itself. I
ended up over-dramatizing a lot of things, to the point where I was talking
about a problem that I really didn’t face so I think that if I shared it, it
would give a false representation of myself. Overall, Lori won the week, myself
placing in second, Avahline in third, and Mckinley was eliminated because he
didn’t submit a piece.

I will however share
my week 5 essay. In honor of the Fourth of July, we had to write either an
essay or short story about/set in our home state. I ended up writing about my
time as a Mackinac Island Governor’s Honor Guard. This week was the week my old
troop was up in Mackinac serving and this year was my first year in a while I
would not be going to Mackinac and I wrote the essay reflecting back on my
experience and what I loved about the island.

Lori won the week (yet
again xD), Adam placing in second, Avahline in third, and Destini was eliminated.

Below is my week 5
essay:

Being
able to watch four different firework shows simultaneously on the Fourth of
July while sitting atop the ramp leading up to Fort Mackinac is a sight that
very few people ever get to see. Looking out over the edge of the fort as the
lights on the Mackinac Bridge brightly twinkle in the distance while a display
of colorful fireworks light up the night sky is a sight that’s truly hard to
forget.

Sure,
hundreds of people visit the fort during the day and take pictures of the
beautiful view overlooking Lake Huron, but seeing that same view at night is
something completely different. It’s almost magical. Main Street which was once
bustling with tourists carrying bags full of fudge is now calm and empty, with
only a few street cleaners roaming the street. The ferries are all docked back
in Mackinaw City, and the lake is calm and quiet as it reflects the colors of
the fireworks that light up the sky.

Only
the few soldiers who work the fort during the summer, a select few people who
pay enough money to receive access to the fort at night, and about forty
teenage girls get to see that sight ever year. I was lucky enough to be one of
those forty teenage girls, for four years in a row.

“Which
ones are you going to watch this year?” I can almost hear my friend Sarah ask
me. I imagine myself and my other friends sitting along the top of the ramp,
doing our best to avoid the spider ridden flag poles. The night is cool with a
gentle breeze blowing in from the lake as we try to find the best place to sit
to see as many of the shows as we can.

“The
Mackinaw City show is always the best,” I imagine myself responding.

“But
they’re so far away you can barely see them.”

“I’ve
never even actually seen the ones in St. Ignace.”

“And
Round Island always blocks the Turtle Island ones.”

“I
hope the island ones are better this year. They are the most convenient to
watch in the first place.”

That’s
how the conversation plays out every single year while we waited for the
fireworks to start. This is my first time in four years I won’t be there on the
island to witness them or be able to talk to my friends about them. It’s a
strange feeling, knowing that for the first time in what seems like an
eternity, I won’t be there to witness an event that has had a tremendous impact
on my life.

The
Mackinac Island Governor’s Honor Guard is something most people – even those
who live in Michigan – don’t even know exists. It’s consists of various troops
of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts from Michigan who were handpicked to alternate
weeks working service hours at the fort. The troop I became a part of, the
Royal Oak troop, was lucky enough to get the opportunity serve during the week
of the July Fourth each year. Of course, working the Fourth of July week comes
with many more responsibilities, including working a shift two hours longer
than usual, and having to learn a long and very tedious flag folding ceremony,
but all the hard work pays off in the end.

I
first joined the troop in the fall of eight grade after hearing about it from
someone I knew at school. At the time I didn’t really see the point to it. It
didn’t seem like fun at all and I didn’t understand why people would volunteer
to stand still for three hours while getting burnt in the sun. Even while
thinking all of that, I joined anyway, basically because it would look good
college applications.

So,
my mom went and bought the hideous green uniform with shorts that didn’t fit
right, knee high socks that cut off my circulation, and a jacket they never let
your wear when it was cold out. I spent the next school year driving forty
minutes away – an hour in the winter – to attend three hour meetings every
other week about how to march in step, raise and lower flags, and most
importantly, how to stand still while on guard duty for three hours, something
that to this day I am still no good at. We marched into the middle of the city
on the days the weather was decent and got stared at by passing runners like we
were some kind of strange green caterpillar.

When
the time came around to actually go to the island, I did not want to go. The
only things you could take with you were whatever you could fit in a three by
three foot plastic box, and there were no electronic devices allowed. The day
we left for the island, I got up at four in the morning and we set off on a
five and a half hour bus ride, cramped, and noisy the entire way there.

I
cried my first two nights there, and I had good reason to. The place was run
like a military school. Wake up at six in the morning, get ready, eat
breakfast, and then bunk inspection before setting off to raise flags at nine.
All of your belongings need to be shoved back into your plastic box, nothing on
the floor, and everything had to look presentable, even though no visitors were
allowed in the barracks in the first place. I told myself I wasn’t going to
come back ever again, but that changed soon enough. Well, four years later and
I was still going to Mackinac and designated as a patrol leader with extra
leadership responsibilities.

My
friends were a big part of the reason why I came back every year. I only saw
them at the meetings and that one week out of the year, and yet, they had
become some of my best friends, but they weren’t the only reason.

It
started at the end of my first year while I was watching the fireworks on the
Fourth of July, and it continued to grow from each year on after that. I
started to feel a personal connection to the island; it started to feel like a
second home to me, even thought I was only there a week out of the year.
There’s an aura to the island that’s hard to explain. It’s almost as if the
entire island is frozen in history. The rest of the world keeps on changing and
progressing, but Mackinac Island still stays the same as it was years ago. No
cars allowed with horses and bikes as the main source of transportation. It’s
laid back, but not to the point where everyone is too lazy to want to walk up
“killer hill” to go visit the fort. It’s a strange sight to see Governor Rick
Snyder wearing a Life is Good shirt
while relaxing with his family on the porch of the governor’s residence, but at
the same time it reminded me that he’s no different than the other tourists on
the island. They went to visit to take day off to relax with their family, and
that’s exactly how he was. The island was a place where people can take a step
back from the world and appreciate simpler things in life.

Every person I’ve met who’s had the
chance to spend a week in the Honor Guard program has felt the same personal
connection to the island. I remember the disappointment I felt when I realized
the annual baseball game wasn’t going to be held the week I was on the island,
the outrage when we noticed they had put a Starbucks on Main Street – taking
away from the island’s historic antiquity – and how I was overjoyed when the
state decided to spend money to refurbish the extremely underappreciated but
just as important Fort Holmes.

It’s strange to think that an island
only eight miles in circumference impacted my view on the State of Michigan
more than the entire Lower Peninsula itself. It brings in tourists from not
only all over the country, but from all over the world. I still don’t really
understand why people come from miles and miles away to see a small island with
nothing on it but one street full of cute stores, a large hotel without
air-conditioning, a fort, and a couple golf courses.

Maybe it’s because they see the same
thing that I see in the island. A place so close to the ever changing world
with its technology and brand names, but still secluded from the hustle and
bustle of everyday life, stuck in a simpler time period where people didn’t
have to check their Twitter every five minutes. Of course, it’s not so outdated
that people see it as a floating ghost town, but it keeps enough of its history
to seem authentic.

When I close my eyes I can almost
imagine the fireworks lighting up the sky. The Mackinaw City ones always
extravagant, but tiny off in the distance, the Turtle island ones just peeking
out over the top of Round Island, the boom of St. Ignace ones going off from
the Upper Peninsula from the opposite side of the island, and the Mackinac
Island ones, never as extravagant as the others, but always the biggest in the
sky. It’s a sight I might never get the chance to see again in my life time,
but one I will be sure to never forget.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

It occurred to me that I should inform you of
the other contestants in this competition. There started off with thirteen of
us. Myself, Tierra, Victoria, Avahline, Lori, Adam, Isabel, Destini, Mckinley,
Marvin, Fiona, Stephanie G, and Stephanie U. Both Stephanies, and Fiona never
ended up submitting work for the first week and all got eliminated then. Marvin
never submitted for the second week and then was eliminated at that time. So,
during week three, there were nine of us left.

This week I found to be rather fun. The prompt
for this week was to write a parable, fable, and fairy/tall tale set in modern
time.

I already knew what I wanted to write for the
fable because I had actually started the idea about a year ago when I was in
Poetry and Short Story class. Fables always include animals and the most common
modern animal I could think of was the squirrel, which I ended up using for the
fable. The parable came to me after remembering a parable from the Bible (the
one about a boy who could pick ears of corn from a field and the father he went
down the line, the bigger they got, so he didn’t pick any hoping they would get
bigger, and he eventually ended up with nothing in the end) and then thinking
of way to make it modern. I ended up applying the stock market to it, a very
modern concept. The fairy tale was a lot harder, but I thought of the idea
after thinking about archetypical fairy tale characters. I also began to think
about Disney Channel movies and the stupid things they do sometimes to try to
add magic to everyday situations, and that’s how I eventually ended up with my
fairy tale.

I don’t have much to say about this week. It
wasn’t really hard and it wasn’t really easy either. I did end up getting third
place over all for the week challenge though, which I consider and
accomplishment. In last year’s season, I had never placed in the top three, so
I found that to be a step up for me. Lori won the week’s challenge, Avahline
placing in second, myself in third, and Isabel was eliminated.

Below are my three stories for the week.

A Nutty Situation (Fable)

In
a small suburb on a street by the name of Westfield lived a small community of
squirrels. They made their homes in the sycamore trees that grew on the front
lawns of the many houses where humans resided. When the leaves had just started
to change colors, the squirrels began to gather nuts for the upcoming winter.

On this street there lived one
particular squirrel by the name of Chester who was very smart and began to
store food for the winter months ahead of the others. His home was already
sufficiently stocked with the food his family needed, but he insisted to
continue foraging in case they had a long winter, common in the region.

One day, a squirrel with a lame leg
and a family of his own to support approached Chester and his home.

“My good friend,” he said to Chester
as he scampered up to him. “You have a massive store of nuts for yourself and
your family. Surely you can spare me a small portion of your supply. I am not
as strong as I used to be and cannot gather enough nuts to support my family.”

Chester, considered his words for
only a second. Thinking of himself first he responded to him harshly.

“No, I cannot spare any of my
supply. I must think of myself and my family before I help others.”

Saddened by his response, but also
understanding his reasoning, the other squirrel slowly scampered away back to
his own tree, wondering how he would find enough food for his family.

Many other squirrels approached
Chester in the fall season, all asking for only a small portion of his supply.
They would tell him things such as:

“Surly you can spare only a few
nuts!”

“You must think of the community as
well!”

“You’ve hogged all of the nuts in
the entire neighborhood!”

But in the end, he gave all of them
the exact same response. “I cannot spare any of my supply. I must think of
myself and my family before I help others.”

So the fall came to an end and the
leaves turned brown and fell from their home in the trees.

As Chester approached his home
from his last scavenging journey and attempted to place the last few nuts into
his home, he realized that he had collected so many nuts they had had
completely blocked the entrance to his house! He scratched at the entrance, squeaking
to alert his wife and kids to clear the entrance for him, but they could not
hear him through the immense wall of nuts blocking the way.

He traveled to each tree along
the street asking for assistance, but everyone was already shut in their houses
for the winter and would not answer him. He tried and he tried, but no one
would answer his cries for help, realizing he would have to face the cold
winter alone without the supply of nuts he had been too greedy to share.

Up and Up (Parable)

Bill
Smith was a business man who his free time playing the stock market. At his job
he envied saw his superiors with expensive watches and driving around in
Lamborghinis, and he played the stocks hoping to one day earn himself enough
money to buy the same things they could afford.

One day while browsing through
the NASDAQ he came across the stock for a budding electronics company called of
L-COMP. Its stock was only valued for four dollars and ninety-six cents
currently, but it had slowly and steadily rose for the last two months. Smith
saw potential in the company and therefore bought one hundred shares, hoping
that his investment would one day pay off.

Over time the stock steadily
rose, but at very small increments. At the end of that year, a share was only
valued at six dollars and five cents, barely rising in price. Giving up hope in
the company, he planned on selling it the next day, taking whatever small
earnings he may have made.

However, Smith woke up the next
morning and went about his usual routine checking the stocks only to find that
the price of one share of L-COMP and drastically risen overnight to eleven
dollars and thirty-nine cents, almost doubling in value. Surprised and elated
by the sudden rise in price, Smith decided to hold onto the stock to see if it
would rise in price in even more.

He observed the price almost
constantly as it continued to rise up and up and up with each passing week, now
being sold for over twenty-five dollars. Ecstatic by his decision to purchase
the stock at such a low price, he put off selling his shares hoping for the day
when L-COMP would rise to its peak. Speaking to himself, he made himself a
promise, simply stating:

“I will sell my shares once it
reaches fifty dollars.”

Unfortunately, greed soon
consumed him to the point where he refused to sell his share in the company.
The day came around when the stock reached fifty dollars, but he then changed
the promise he made to himself.

“The stock is doing so well I
might as well wait for when it reaches one hundred dollars to increase my
profit further!”

One hundred dollars soon turned
into one twenty five, and one twenty five into two hundred. Wanting to make as
much money was possible, he refused to sell the stock. He became lazy and
checked the stocks less frequently, only about once a week, thinking that his
prized L-COMP stock could only rise in price.

The day came two years later when
L-COMP went bankrupt and the price of its stock fell so fast, it was down below
five dollars in only a week. By the time Smith took notice of the sudden
downfall of the company, the stock had dropped to four dollars and forty eight
cents, less money than what he had originally paid for it.

He immediately sold his stock,
losing money in the process with a heavy head. He continued to think of the
various times he could’ve sold the stock and made a great profit.

Five Dollar Wish
(Fairy Tale)

The homeless almost constantly
lined the streets of New York City, so for Courtney, it wasn’t an unusual site
to see an old woman in tattered clothes begging for money on the corner of the
street.

“Can you please spare me some
money?” the woman pleaded as Courtney walked by. She stopped for a minute in
front of the woman. She looked at plastic up in front of her which only held a
few coins. She knew the people of New York were greedy, pushing the homeless
aside often. Because of this she always liked to give a couple of dollars here
and there to people she passed on the street.

While bending down to place a
five dollar bill in the plastic cup in front of her, the woman reached out and
grabbed hold of her hands.

“Thank you so much for you
kindness,” the woman told her looking straight into her eyes. “I wish to return
the favor. Tell me, what is your biggest desire?”

“Well,” Courtney began while
still staring into the eyes of the woman, unsure of what to think. “I want to
make it into Julliard. I auditioned last week, but I don’t have the minimum
standard grades and turned in my paperwork late, so I’m afraid my audition was
valid.”

The woman smiled back at her with
a toothless grin. “What a wonderful wish.” The woman, still clasping onto
Courtney’s hands, closed her eyes for a brief moment, almost as if casting a
blessing over her. A few moments later, she released her hands and the five
dollar bill fell down into the woman’s lap. The woman picked up the bill while
still smiling at Courtney.

“You are a very talented girl;
you shall have a successful future.” Courtney smiled back at her, unsure of
what else to do as she continued her way down the street.

When she was a block away she
heard her phone ring. She pulled it out of her purse while quickly answering
the call.

“Is this Courtney Miller?” the
voice asked.

“Yes it is,”

“My name is Emma Long from the
Julliard School of Dance. I am pleased to inform you that we have accepted you
into our program for the upcoming year.”

Courtney stopped in her tracks
and brought a hand up to her mouth as she muffled a silent scream. People
pushed her aside while glancing her way, but Courtney didn’t care.

“Thank you so much!” While still
holding the phone to her ear, she ran down the street, wanting to tell the old
woman about the good news. However, when she reached the spot where she had met
her, she was no longer there, not a trace of her presence left behind.

Friday, July 18, 2014

So, on Figment I am an admin of a group called
Capital Contests where we run fun contests and other writing related fun
activities. The creator of the group Mimi allowed me to run a contest in the
group in order to promote The Unusual Isles. The challenge basically to create
a story based off the title The Unusual Isles. They could interpret it any way
they wanted to.

I
only ended up getting two entries for the contest, which was disappointing, but
it was a close call for me on who I ended up picking as the winner and I wanted
to share their stories with you guys!

I
ended up picking Figment user Kindle as the winner of the challenge for her
piece Mysterious “the Isles”. It was about a girl who went to a mysterious
island against her uncle’s wishes and ultimately gets trapped there forever. When
I read it for the first time it automatically intrigued me and the whole story
kept me interested. It was written very well with basically no grammar errors I
could immediately see. Just by her one piece I could tell that she was a very
talented writer and has a lot of writing potential. It’s a very good and quick
read and I highly recommend you check it out along with her other works!

Here is a link to Kindle’s story and Figment
profile if you want to know more about her:

The other entry in the contest was by Figment
used Jennie F. Lee with her piece The Northern Trident. She took on a spin on
the title I never expected to see, but loved at the same time. She wrote about
a group of mermaids who had to retrieve a trident from the Shadow Boys who had
stolen it from them. The only reason it didn’t win because it lacked the
direction that Kindle’s story had and also the development of the main
character. Overall I still really enjoyed the piece (I love mermaid stories)
and it’s another enjoyable read.

Here’s the links to Jennie’s story and Figment
profile to get to know more about her: